Bilingual Children in Transnational Families: Language and Literacy Practices Across Geographic Boundaries

• In Event: 79.051 - MTCC Roundtable Session 37
  In Roundtable Session: 79.051-3 - Explorations of Biliteracy

Abstract

This multi-sited ethnographic case study explores the fluidity and multiplicity of three bilingual children’s language and literacy practices that move and shift across geographic boundaries. Unlike the majority of previous studies that focus on immigrants’ experiences in either a receiving or sending country, the current study focuses on gaining a more expansive and nuanced picture of bilingual children’s transnational experiences by collecting data from various spaces in both “home” and “host” countries. This study contributes to the existing body of research on literacy and bilingual education research by contesting the binaries of home/school and sending/receiving contexts while highlighting bilingual children’s flexible and rich language and literacy practices.

Author

• Jungmin Kwon, Michigan State University